Mindopen Number 7 Spring 2011

DIGIZINE PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTe
Mind INSIGHTS IN
PSYCHOLOGY
Open Number 7 - Spring 2011
interviews with (among others):

Carsten de Dreu
Elske Salemink
Eric-Jan Wagemakers
Heleen Slagter
Henk Jan Conradi
Alba Jasini
Published by
University of Amsterdam also at www.mindopen.nl
contents
MindOpen
editorial
3 Number 7 – Spring 2011
A methodological mirror
www.mindopen.nl
WORK & ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Published by

Psychology Research Institute
The other side of oxytocin 4 Faculty of Behavioural and
Balancing right and wrong 6 Social Sciences
The rush of playing jazz and studying abroad 8

Managing Editor
Gerard Kerkhof
Brain & cognition Editor

The brain of a bilingual 9
Vittorio Busato
Training cognitive functions with neurofeedback 11
A scientific internship down under 13 Contributors

Jorn Hövels, Paulien Bakker,
Ger Post
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
News & Agenda
Less worrying with cognitive behavioral therapy 14
Renée Veldhuis
The persistent fear memory 16
Regulating emotions through cognitive reassessment 18 Translations

Judith van Dongen
PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS Graphic Design

Buro MET Graphic Designers
Psychologists have to be harder on themselves 19
www.buromet.nl
Math in people 21
Visualising data with qgraph 23 Email

mindopen@uva.nl
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Subscriptions
24 www.mindopen.nl
Neurostimulator makes Parkinson’s patients more impulsive
Cognitive bias in alcoholics 26
Address
Why children and adolescents don’t make good decisions 28 MindOpen Digizine
Psychology Research Institute
Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Amsterdam, The Netherlands
How does prejudice develop? 29

Concept & Communications
Why obstacles are actually a good thing 31
Communications Office FMG
Stereotyping leads to hate leads to stereotyping 33
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communicatie-fmg@uva.nl
PhDs & Grants 34

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News & Agenda 35 Marjan Bakker †
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2 digizine mindopen VI - spring 2011 psychology research institute

editorial
A methodologi-
A methodological mirror
cal mirror
door Vittorio Busato
‘Methodologists are often seen as whiners.’ Mathematical graduation. All things considered, these students are pushing
psychologist Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, associate professor in their boundaries, both literally and figuratively—and I say this
the Psychological Methods Program Group, says this in this with a hint of envy. This has unintentionally given this issue
new issue of MindOpen. Together with several colleagues he an international flavor. All students we interviewed, except
debunked an article by well-known social psychologist Daryl Thomas Hoogland, are captivated by scientific research.
Bem published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Hoogland (Work & Organizational Psychology) is conducting
Social Psychology. In that article, Bem claims that precognition research on gossiping in Seoul but aspires to an existence
exists: people can sense the future. It’s an extraordinary claim as a penniless jazz guitar player. ‘The rush of playing jazz
for which he provides no proof, according to Wagenmakers. cannot be compared to any significant research finding.’
‘What Bem did with his data was a fishing expedition.
With enough fishing, you always come up with something Unmistakably true. It may not be jazz, but Amster-
to which you can then add a nice interpretive spin.’ dam psychology research does rock. This kaleidoscopic
issue of MindOpen (again) provides the proof. Wishing
Psychologists should conduct better research and should you lots of reading pleasure, and enjoy the rush.
analyze their data better—that’s the methodological mir-
ror Wagenmakers and colleagues are holding up to the
entire psychology community, both here and abroad. The
quality of the research at the Psychology Department of Vittorio Busato, editor
the UvA has always been good. In this issue you will find mindopen@uva.nl
a generous and varied selection of the research conducted www.vittoriobusato.nl
here. Just like in the very first MindOpen we’ve chosen to
feature a number of first authors on papers published in P.S. Production for this issue was already in full swing when doctoral
high impact journals. Carsten de Dreu, professor in work candidate Janina Marguc (Social Psychology) provided an addition to her
response to the last interview question. She is studying the usefulness of
and organizational psychology, even made it into Science
obstacles, and it was shown very recently that participants who had been
with his research on oxytocin. Annette de Groot, professor asked in advance to think in an abstract, detached way about the greatest
in experimental psycholinguistics in the Brain and Cog- possible obstacle that could prevent them from reaching their goal in
nition Program Group, discusses her influential textbook the next six months did indeed come up with more creative solutions.
on bilingualism and multilingualism rather than a paper. My precognition says that colleague Bem could undoubtedly learn
something from that.
Six doctoral candidates also explain their research. And *http://www.studeren.uva.nl/msc_psychology

for the first time MindOpen includes master’s students.
Among others, Eveline Zandvliet (thanks again!) with the
research master’s program in psychology* alerted us to several
students who have achieved outstanding academic results
and are doing or have done something special toward their
digizine mindopen VII - Spring 2011 psychology research institute 3

WORK & ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
The other side

The other side of oxytocin
of oxytocin
by Vittorio Busato
Oxytocin has popularly been known as the “love hormone” or “cuddle chemical.” The
substance is produced in the hypothalamus and is released when mothers nurse their
offspring, among other instances. Oxytocin promotes trust and is said to make people
act kinder to each other. Carsten de Dreu, professor in the Work & Organizational
Psychology Program Group, did some remarkable research on this hormone. He and his
colleagues discovered that oxytocin isn’t all roses. They published the results in Science*
and in PNAS**.
How does an industrial-organizational psychologist varied the degree to which we portrayed the rivaling group as
end up doing research on oxytocin? a threat. Those who had taken oxytocin showed more aggres-
‘I was trained as a social psychologist, but have always had sion toward the other group, but especially if the other group
an extraordinary interest in biology and psychophysiology. was considered a threat. Our research in PNAS also shows
Social psychology has much to say about affective neurosci- that people who have been given oxytocin evaluate group
ence and behavioral economics. In that respect, my research members with a similar background more positively and that
on oxytocin makes me feel like a man on a mission. In late oxytocin can strengthen prejudice against other groups.’
2008 I worked on a review paper on social conflicts for the
Handbook of Social Psychology. I came across a study that sho- Was it intentional that the study only looked at men?
wed that oxytocin strengthens the mutual sense of belonging ‘Yes, for pragmatic reasons. In women, contractions may
to a group. But, I asked myself, couldn’t it be that oxytocin occur when they don’t realize they’re pregnant. So we cannot
also promotes aggression toward or a drive to compete with strictly say that oxytocin has the same effect on men and
rivaling groups? After all, to protect the own group—the in- women. In Science we wrote that we studied the most relevant
group—it might be necessary to disadvantage another group— half of human society, since it’s primarily men who wage war
the out-group. For example, female rats with pups are known and fight in group conflicts. And we got away with that.’
to act aggressively toward intruders, but that aggression disap-
pears when the production of oxytocin in the brain is halted.’ Your research has received a lot of media attention.
‘Yes, among others in the New York Times—a great honor.
How did you study this hypothesis in humans? But I am also being invited as a speaker at neurobiology
‘In a double-blind study, we had young male psychology conferences where, given my background, you wouldn’t
students play a financial investment game. They could keep immediately expect to find me. Recently, I started col-
money for themselves; add it to their group pool, which laborating with cognitive neuroscientists in Nijmegen
would benefit each member of their group; or they could add and Utrecht. Here in Amsterdam, I am planning an fMRI
money to a pool that would provide a bonus for their group study with my colleagues Richard Ridderinkhof from
members but would cause losses for the rivaling group. Sub- developmental psychology and Frans van Winden from
jects were given oxytocin, placebo, or nothing. Those who economics. Yes, my in-group has grown considerably.’
received oxytocin only wanted to increase the contribution
to their own group pool. So oxytocin increases collaboration
within the group. In a different version of the game, we
4 digizine mindopen VII - Spring 2011 psychology research institute

What is the practical relevance of your research?
‘There are indications that people with autism or
attachment issues may benefit from taking oxytocin. It
can increase trust in the therapist, thereby improving the
professional relationship and possibly making therapy
more successful. But this is still very speculative.’
Suppose that managers want to see their teams

collaborate better. Would administering oxytocin help?
‘That would be completely senseless. The effects
of oxytocin are relatively weak, short-lived, and to a
large extent determined by a variety of yet unknown
context factors. Long-term team building benefits from
transparent salary structures and a positive manage-
ment style. Oxytocin has nothing to add to that.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.k.w.dedreu/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/k.r.ridderinkhof/
http://www1.fee.uva.nl/creed/
*De Dreu, C.K.W., Greer, L.L., Handgraaf, M.J.J., Shalvi, S. Van Kleef,
G.A., Baas, M.Ten Velden, F.S., Van Dijk, E. & Feith, S.W.W. (2010). The
neuropeptide oxytocin regulates parochial altruism in intergroup conflict
among humans. Science, 328, 1408-1411.
(http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5984/1408.full?ijkey=iaojWoP
CVkyvQ&keytype=ref&siteid=sci)
**De Dreu, C.K. W., Greer, L. L., Van Kleef, G. A., Shalvi, S., &
Handgraaf, M. J. J., (2011). Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 1262-1266.

Balancing
Balancing right and wrong
right and wrong

by Vittorio Busato
Shaul Shalvi was born and raised in Jerusalem. As a master’s student in social psycho-
logy he decided to delve deeper into how people make decisions, negotiate, and deal
with conflict—relevant topics in his home country, says Shalvi, who like every Israeli
has had to serve in the military for three years upon finishing high school and is used to
being on alert for possible terrorist (suicide) attacks in public places. In 2006 he applied
for an exchange program at the UvA and got involved in research by Carsten de Dreu
and Michel Handgraaf, professor and assistant professor, respectively, with the Work &
Organizational Psychology Program Group—a collaboration that resulted in a doctoral
position. On July 1 of this year, Shalvi hopes to earn his doctoral degree based on the
dissertation Ethical Decision Making: On Balancing Right and Wrong.
Are there notable differences between Israel and the Do you have any hope that perhaps
Netherlands in how psychological research is done? your research will do that?
‘The academic level is comparable. What I’ve noticed ‘From psychology literature, much is known about what
here is the intensive collaboration between psychologists motivates people to negotiate, but very little about when
at different universities. Israel does not have anything people will start to negotiate or actually seek to avoid it. That
similar to the Kurt Lewin Institute, for example. Resear- is one of the research questions in my dissertation. One of
chers here are very aware of what others are working on. the reasons is that people avoid negotiations so as not to be
They network a lot. In Israel they keep to themselves to tempted to deceive others and profit from that themselves.
a much larger extent. Also, you spend much more time My research focuses on how individuals interact, not on
writing grant proposals. Here in the Netherlands, those the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But political
who get a grant know how much time they will spend on leaders are people, too. If my results could help them start
research and teaching within a reasonable period of time.’ a conversation with each other, I would be thrilled.’
As a psychologist, do you ever wonder In your dissertation you focus primarily on

why people commit suicide attacks? ethical aspects of decision making.
‘I consider myself an expert in the area of social psycho- ‘Yes. It’s often the situation that makes people feel
logy, but not on why people would blow themselves up.’ tempted to behave less ethically. Think of illegally down-
loading music or taking pens and paper home from the
Can psychologists contribute to the solution office. In one experiment I looked at how people behave
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? in a negotiation game when they have foreknowledge.
‘Israelis and Palestinians don’t talk to each other. Subjects had to divide up chips. Half were told that the
This deadlock at the political macro level would not be chips were worth twice as much to them as to the person
easily overcome by psychologists and their research.’ they had to negotiate with. That’s when you can offer to

split the chips fifty-fifty, supposedly, while knowing that What are your plans after completing
your opponent will never expose you as a liar. It’s a gray your doctoral degree?
area, yet most subjects choose not to play that game.’ ‘It was a big step to move here. But it has worked out
well for me—I love Amsterdam tremendously, have found
What is your explanation? my love here. For the coming two and a half years I will
‘Most people want to behave fairly, it appears. Other- stay here as a postdoc. Among other things, I will be
wise you have some explaining to do. After all, you conducting research into the basic mechanisms that under-
have to be able to justify your behavior to yourself.’ lie lying and unethical behavior. Research is also being
planned into the effects of oxytocin on making ethical
Aren’t there certain personality characteristics decisions, whether or not it’s in favor of your own group.’
that play a decisive role in that gray area?
‘My research hasn’t shown that. People don’t like moral
obstacles, and they certainly don’t want to be affected by
them. I really love Nudge*, an influential book in beha- http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/
vioral economics that shows how you can structure your http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.k.w.dedreu/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.j.j.handgraaf/
surroundings in such a way that you will behave more
http://www.kurtlewininstitute.nl/
ethically while at the same time maintaining your freedom
of choice. For example, the zone system in the Amsterdam * Thaler, R.H. & Sunstein, C.R. (2008). Nudge. Improving decisions about
public transportation system was rather unclear. Ever since health, wealth and happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
the introduction of the chip card, people no longer have
to wonder whether they are stamping enough zones.’

The rush of
The rush of playing jazz
and studying abroad
playing jazz
by Vittorio Busato
and study-
ing abroad
Thomas Hoogland (24) is currently finishing up the second year of his research master’s
in psychology, under the supervision of associate professor Bianca Beersma. Prior to his
master’s he completed a bachelor’s in work and organizational psychology, including a
research internship at the Technical University of Darmstadt. After a second research
internship in Frankfurt, he is now working on his thesis research in Seoul.
You’re very internationally oriented. Have you noticed any distinct differences between
‘Being a research assistant is not the most exciting part psychology in Korea and the Netherlands?
of studying for me. After a few weeks I tend to lose interest ‘I am not in a position to evaluate differences in
when I am so intensely focused on a single subject. However, academic progress, but I do see distinct differences in
living abroad makes up for a lot. Going to Germany for Korean students. Master’s students work incredibly
a second time was a safe choice, but nevertheless much hard. There is a strong sense of competition, which I
more exciting than staying home. On the first day of hadn’t expected to see in a collectivistic culture. Korean
my internship I asked my supervisor, Myriam Bechtoldt, students also show great respect for their professors. I
if she knew anyone in Asia who could supervise my have respect for them, too, but I also find that you learn
second research internship. She suggested South Korea. the most from disagreement with your professor.’
So going to Seoul was not really a conscious choice, but
it did meet my requirement of being very far away.’ What are your plans after graduation?
‘I’m not looking to get a doctoral degree. A while ago I
What type of research are you doing in Seoul? had a discussion with my father on weight loss strategies,
‘I am trying to find out why people gossip. The topic and I’m currently writing a book on dieting. I hope it will
is fairly new, and there was actually no specific reason make me a lot of money. However, my biggest dream is to
to study this phenomenon in South Korea, of all places. become a penniless jazz guitar player. I currently play in
But the opportunity presented itself to study intercultural the BBA Jazz Big Band of Seoul. The rush of playing jazz
differences as they relate to gossiping. However, my real cannot be compared to any significant research finding.’
interest is in the country, the people, and the fact that I am
now part of that. That’s why I decided to learn Korean.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/b.beersma/
http://web.uni-frankfurt.de/fb05/psychologie/Abteil/ABO/personal/
bechtoldt.htm

Brain & cognition
The brain of
The brain of a bilingual
a bilingual
by Ger Post
For nearly two decades Annette de Groot has been a professor of experimental psycho-
linguistics in the Brain and Cognition Program Group. To say that her latest book—her
seventh—has been well received is an understatement. Experts in the field of multilingu-
alism are full of praise on Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduc-
tion. Speaking of impact, David Green*, editor of the journal Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition even refers to it as ‘a major contribution to the field.’
Why this book? Ten years ago you said in Psychologie Magazine,
‘The attention for the phenomenon of bilingualism “bilingualism can lift thinking to a higher level.” How?
and multilingualism is steadily growing. But a book writ- ‘Wow, did I already go as far as to say it like that back
ten at the introductory level as well as covering the full then? Bilingualism in which both languages have developed
range of psycholinguistic research into bilingualism didn’t equally and where the bilingual uses both languages daily is
yet exist. I wanted to fill that void and lay a foundation beneficial for general executive control. This is apparent from
for the 2005 Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic the fact that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals
Approaches, which I edited with Judith Kroll.’ at certain nonverbal tasks that require executive control.
The explanation for this is that bilinguals continually use
Can writing a book be compared to brain mechanisms to keep the two languages apart. It has
writing a scientific paper? made bilinguals into quasi-experts on cognitive control.
‘Unlike in other fields, such as the humanities, writing Bilingualism can also improve thinking. Different languages
books is considered as somewhat of a useless activity in divide up the world around us in different ways in their
psychology—undeservedly so, in my opinion. Writing papers vocabulary—just think of the Dutch word “gezellig,” which is
is important, of course, but it mostly yields fragmented so challenging to translate. In other words, languages differ
knowledge. Sooner or later someone has to come up with in their lexical concepts. Thus, learning a second language
the patience, energy, and endurance to try to connect also involves learning different concepts. That enriches your
everything in writing. Writing this book was by far the conceptual experience. Various studies confirm that this has
greatest challenge of my academic career. Every published a positive influence on creative thinking, for example.’
paper results from a high level of insight, knowledge, and
skill. Yet, the time it takes to write, including revisions, is How does the brain of a bilingual differ
manageable. Writing a book requires a lot of patience.’ from that of a monolingual?
‘It was long thought that language is localized differently
in the brain of bilinguals than in monolinguals. There are
different versions of this view, such as that both languages are
located more bilaterally (on both sides of the brain) in a bilin-
gual. Or that the left hemisphere is primarily involved in lan-
guage processing in the first language and the right in proces-
sing the second language. When bilinguals perform a task in

the second language, you really do see a lot of activity in the What would you recommend to someone
right hemisphere, and the same goes for the left hemisphere who wants to learn a second language?
when performing a task in the first language. However, the ‘Start out by simultaneously learning fundamental gram-
most recent insight is that this activation pattern is the result mar and a basic vocabulary. With 3,000 commonly used
of differences in proficiency in the two languages. The second words a person can understand 95 percent of an average
language is often not as well developed. To make the most of text in a second language. The remaining 5 percent can
it, various nonlanguage strategies are employed. These proces- subsequently be learned by reading a lot. As you go along,
sing operations are mostly seated in the right hemisphere. In the explicitly studied grammar gets automated as well.’
subjects in whom both languages have developed equally, the
same areas in the left hemisphere are active during language
processing for both the first and the second language.’
De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and
multilinguals: An introduction. New York-Hove: Psychology Press.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.m.b.degroot/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/staff/cpb-staff/d_green
http://psych.la.psu.edu/directory/faculty-bios/kroll.html
* http://www.psypress.com/language-and-cognition-in-bilinguals-and-
multilinguals-9781848729018

Brain & cognition
Training
Training cognitive functions
with neurofeedback
cognitive
by Ger Post
functions with
neurofeedback
Assistant professor Heleen Slagter received a Vidi scholarship from NWO for her
research into the brain mechanisms that underlie cognitive plasticity. Her research
primarily focuses on how the brain selects and coordinates information in accordance
with goals set and the degree to which these cognitive abilities can be improved through
training.
Why your interest in cognitive plasticity? Did you have specific expectations
‘After earning my doctoral degree at the UvA I worked for of the meditation training?
more than four years at the Waisman Center for Brain Ima- ‘I expected that, after those three months, subjects
ging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in would notice the second stimulus more often and that
the U.S. I was asked to help think about a study on the effects their attention wouldn’t get stuck on the first stimulus as
of meditation, and that piqued my interest in cognitive plas- frequently. That’s exactly what we found, not only in their
ticity. The subjects for that study participated in an intensive, behavior, but also in their brain response. Those results
ten-hour-a-day mindfulness training for three months.’ indicate that intensive training of cognitive processes, as is
the case in mindfulness, can lead to changes in cognitive
What were they asked to do? functioning, even in the adult brain. To gain more insight
‘The subjects had to open themselves up to all thoughts, into the underlying mechanisms and as part of my Vidi study,
feelings, and sensations that arose, without delving deeper I will train basic cognitive functions through computer-based
into them. I knew almost nothing about meditation, but tasks and neurofeedback and see what happens in the brain.’
based on the assumption that intensive training in mindful-
ness leads to a form of non-reactive consciousness, it seemed Which cognitive functions does this include?
interesting to examine whether the training would make ‘We will focus on two cognitive functions that play
subjects perform better at attention tasks.* They received an important role in the performance on various tasks;
a whole series of stimuli in rapid succession, but only had that decline through aging; and that are important
to respond to two pictures. It turns out that if one target symptoms for psychiatric illnesses when impaired.
picture follows the other within half a second, the subject First of all, we will concentrate on retaining important
often doesn’t see the second picture. It’s as if their attention information in working memory and ignoring irrelevant
stalls for a moment and gets stuck on the first picture.’ information through the use of various tasks. In addition,
cognitive flexibility is vitally important for the ability
to switch quickly between one task and the other.’

In which brain areas do you expect to see changes? How is neurofeedback involved in this study?
‘Efficient cognitive functioning stems from good com- ‘Neurofeedback provides subjects with a live view of
munication between different brain areas. That’s why we their brain activity. For example, we know that a specific
will be studying whether different brain areas interact more EEG signal occurs while performing certain tasks. Without
efficiently as the training progresses. Specifically, we’re giving them a task, we want to teach subjects to induce this
looking at changes in functional connectivity as measured signal in themselves. We will do this by giving them positive
in fMRI and EEG scans, but also at changes at the structural feedback (such as a tone) the moment they generate the
level, in the anatomical connections between areas.’ right pattern of brain activity. Subsequently, we want to
examine whether this training has a positive effect on the
What knowledge does that yield? performance on tasks in which this signal normally occurs.’
‘This study can point out which neurocognitive systems
are capable of changing and to what degree. During each
training session, we will also measure brain activity so we
can keep track of changes over time. That way, we can http://sites.google.com/site/heleenaslagter/
see how long it takes to induce neurocognitive plasticity. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/h.a.slagter/
* http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.
We will also study whether changes in the brain are still
pbio.0050138
present several months after the training. Just as muscle
strength decreases when you’re no longer working out,
we expect to see brain functions fall back to the starting
level when you’re no longer actively training them.’
RECENTly published
Verschuere, B., Ben-Shakhar, G., & Meijer, E.

Memory Detection, Theory and Application
of the Concealed Information Test
2011 - New York: Cambridge University Press

Brain & cognition
A scientific
A scientific internship down under
internship
by Vittorio Busato
down under
After his studies at the School of Journalism, Ger Post (30) wrote for periodicals such as
Nieuwe Revu and Volkskrant Magazine. But writing alone wasn’t enough—he also wanted
to delve into psychology research. After a bachelor’s in psychonomics he chose to do a
research master’s with a specialization in brain and cognition. He is currently doing an
internship in Australia at the Mental Health Research Institute (MHRI) in Melbourne,
under the supervision of Dr. Maarten van den Buuse and Dr. Taco Werkman.
Why did you choose the master’s Are you studying a specific area of the brain?
in brain and cognition? ‘Schizophrenia patients primarily show defects in
‘Due to my interest in the relationship between brain and the prefrontal cortex. I also focused on that area of the
behavior. This master’s program consists in large part of brain during my internship at the NIN. At the MHRI
two research projects. I did an internship at the Netherlands I learn techniques to measure neuronal differences in
Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) in Amsterdam for the brain structure and how genetic and hormonal factors
first project, a study into the effects of deep brain stimu- play a role in the development of a disorder.’
lation on depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The second project focuses on the neural processes that Have you noticed any distinct differences
underlie schizophrenia, and that’s why I’m currently doing between doing psychology research in
an internship at the internationally renowned MHRI.’ the Netherlands and in Australia?
‘Deep brain stimulation is relatively new. At the NIN
What exactly are you studying? there was still a lot to be discovered in that area. Although
‘My research focuses primarily on the protein Reelin. it did provide for a challenging internship, it didn’t yield
During the development of the body in the uterus, this as many findings for my internship report. I’m now
protein is closely involved in the organization of neurons involved in a long-term project in which I use techniques
in the brain. In later life, Reelin is especially important for that have been used more. There’s less for me to figure out
making connections between neurons. Schizophrenia patients by myself, but I do produce more results more quickly.
show a sharp decline of this protein in their brains. There
is a specific type of mouse that has a similar defect. In my When do you hope to graduate and
study I examine whether this mouse is more vulnerable to what are your goals after that?
stress, which is an important trigger for schizophrenia. I also ‘This coming summer. Through these internships
look for gender-based differences, because earlier experiments I hope to increase my chances of getting a docto-
showed that male mice are more vulnerable to stress than ral position. However, writing also still appeals to
females. Female hormones appear to have a protective me. A combination of both would be ideal.’
effect on schizophrenia-like behaviors in these animals.’
http://www.nin.knaw.nl/
http://www.nin.knaw.nl/research_groups/denys_group/research_topics/
http://www.mhri.edu.au/
http://www.mhri.edu.au/associate-professor-maarten-van-den-buuse
digizine mindopen VI - spring 2011 psychology research institute 13

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Less worrying
Less worrying with cognitive
behavioral therapy
with cognitive
by Jorn Hövels
behavioral
For three years, Henk Jan Conradi, a researcher in the Clinical Psychology Program
therapy
Group, kept track of four groups of patients with depression. This was part of the so-cal-
led effectiveness trial, in which patients were asked about their symptoms on a weekly
basis. The control group received regular care from a primary care physician; the second
group also received psychoeducation; the third group received psychiatric consultation;
and the fourth group was treated with cognitive behavioral therapy. From the main
comparison made in this study—published in 2007 in Psychological Medicine*, it turned out
that psychiatric consultation and cognitive behavioral therapy were little more effective
than the primary care physician. Education had no effect whatsoever.
What other comparisons were made?

‘A subgroup comparison of the treatment options.
Patients who had had a depression at least four times
clearly benefited more from cognitive behavioral therapy.
For patients with three or less depressions, primary care
was just as effective. We wondered for which individual
symptoms cognitive behavioral therapy made a difference
as compared to primary care. It turned out that patients
with four or more depressions during the study continued
experiencing cognitive problems for half of the follow-up
period, on average, if they had been treated by their primary
care physician. Following cognitive behavioral therapy those
problems didn’t continue for nearly as long, on average.’
What can we conclude from that?

‘Because this is a subgroup comparison, I can’t make
any firm statements about that. However, this study**
does offer a possible explanation: it’s very well pos-
sible that individual symptoms of patients with multiple
depressions primarily involve cognitive problems.’

But that hasn’t been confirmed? That seems tricky to me.
‘Something is going on with that group for sure, because ‘There are techniques to do that. I recently attended a
three earlier studies showed roughly the same outcome. workshop that revolved around a suicidal patient. To suppress
In the literature it has been posed that recurring depres- her suicidal thoughts, she learned to visualize standing at
sions are not necessarily triggered by negative life events, a bus stop and seeing a bus full of suicidal thoughts arrive.
such as getting laid off or losing a loved one, but that The choice was up to her: do I get in or not? She learned
they are more likely the consequence of a fixed way of to let that bus pass and wave it goodbye. It may sound
thinking and interpreting: brooding and worrying, which overly simple, but when worrying has become your second
makes you fall back into depression again and again. That nature, cognitive behavioral therapy can help you address
would in turn explain why cognitive behavioral therapy your negative thinking by focusing on the content of your
is especially effective in people with multiple depressions. thoughts. But you can also change your attitude toward wor-
It addresses worrying better than a primary care visit.’ rying. Of course one solution does not preclude the other.’
What’s the relevance of this?

‘Patients with one-time depression benefit equally
from a primary care visit. The mental health care system http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/h.j.conradi/
cannot serve everyone. That’s why it makes sense to
*Conradi, H.J., De Jonge, P., Kluiter, H., Smit, A., Van der Meer, K.,
better differentiate between different patients.’
Jenner, J.A., Van Os, T.W.D.P., Emmelkamp, P.M.G. & Ormel, J. (2007).
Enhanced treatment for depression in primary care: Long-term outcomes
What else did this three-year study yield? of a psychoeducational program alone and enriched with psychiatric
‘We became interested in the course of patients’ individual consultation or cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychological Medicine, 37,
depression symptoms. Using the same data set, we studied 849-862.
how those symptoms developed over time. This follow-up
**Conradi, H.J., De Jonge, P. & Ormel, J. (2008). Cognitive-behavioural
study will be published very soon in Psychological Medicine***. therapy v. usual care in recurrent depression. British Journal of Psychiatry,
A notable outcome is that concentration problems are the 193, 505-506.
most prevalent depression symptom. Next come sleep pro-
blems and lack of energy, feelings of guilt and worthlessness ***Conradi, H.J., De Jonge, P. & Ormel, J. (2011). Presence of individual
and, lastly, psychomotor issues and thoughts about death.’ (residual) symptoms during depressive episodes and periods of remission:
A three-year prospective study. Psychological Medicine, 41, 1165-1175.
Concentration problems are usually

work related, aren’t they?
‘They apparently also play an important role in depres-
sion. That’s why people with depression often benefit from
mindfulness, a meditative therapy that teaches people to
live in the present, as a supplement to cognitive behavioral
therapy. That’s especially true for brooding patients who
suffer from multiple depressions. Mindfulness teaches
people that they can make a decision to stop worrying.’

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
The persistent
The persistent fear memory
fear memory
by Jorn Hövels
Marieke Effting, postdoc in the Clinical Psychology Program Group, does experimental
research on anxiety reduction. People with anxiety disorders are commonly treated with
cognitive behavioral therapy. But often fear returns over the course of time; unlearning
fear turns out to be context specific. Effting hopes to earn her doctoral degree this
coming summer. Her promotor is Merel Kindt.
How does fear work? So what did you study?

‘Conditioning plays an important role. This has been ‘We wanted to influence subjects’ fear memory by
shown through research in rats. When you consistently making their learned fears context sensitive as well.
follow a neutral tone with an adverse event, such as a shock, In other words, we wanted them to learn to differen-
rats start to show a fear response to the neutral tone.’ tiate between situations in which they did and did
not need to be afraid of fear-inducing stimuli.’
And how does unlearning work?
‘When the shock after the neutral tone fails to occur, How was that done?
the fear and the fear response gradually extinguish. But ‘First we conditioned the subjects by showing them neutral
that (unjust) fear usually does return, for example when images of geometrical shapes on a screen, followed by a small
the neutral tone is being presented again after a while. shock so that after a while they became fearful and showed
That’s when the old fear is revived, even when it has been a fear response as soon as a geometric shape appeared.
previously unlearned. When you place rats into a new This conditioning took place in a room with blue lighting.
environment, different from the one in which they unlearned Subsequently, we extinguished the fear by not administering
the fear, fear for the neutral tone returns as well. From this small shocks after the appearance of geometrical shapes for
we can conclude that unlearning fear is context specific. a while. However—and this is important—that happened in
The same thing applies to people treated for their fears with a room with yellow lighting. Sometimes we alternated the
cognitive behavioral therapy. They often become fearful two conditions. That’s when the room was suddenly lit blue
again in a new environment. Despite the cognitive behavioral again, and the geometrical shape was once again followed
therapy, the fear memory itself often remains intact.’ by a small shock. This taught subjects to differentiate. Their
fear memory stored that they only needed to be fearful in a
A persistent virus, fear. blue-lit room, because only then would they receive a shock.’
‘From an evolutionary perspective it’s functional that
learning fear is not context specific, but that the fear
memory generalizes what’s learned to a variety of situ-
ations. For example, if we’ve experienced that African
snakes are dangerous, we’ll also stay away from Australian
snakes. And that’s not a bad thing, safety wise.’

And that’s how you made learned You haven’t given up, have you?
fears context sensitive? ‘No. In a subsequent experiment, we tried to tie learned
‘Unfortunately we didn’t completely succeed at that. fears to a specific cue. For example, if someone has been
That would only be true if from that moment on sub- robbed in the park by a man wearing a ski mask, you don’t
jects only showed a fear response in the blue-lit room. want him to fear all men in the park, just those wearing such
But when we subsequently used green lighting in the a mask. In that case, the ski mask is the specific cue. In an
room, they again responded fearfully to the geometrical experiment similar to the last one, subjects saw a picture of
shapes. So the fear memory had remained intact.’ a living room with a chair, table, and painting while learning
the same fear. In that study, those objects served as specific
Makes sense. After all, they learned that color cues to which we wanted to tie the fear. In a subsequent
makes a difference in whether or not they session, the geometrical shapes were only followed by a shock
received an electrical shock, so why wouldn’t when the shapes were accompanied by one of the specific
green be accompanied by a shock? cues from the learning context: a chair, table, or painting.’
‘Exactly, that’s why fear is so persistent. It’s bet-
ter to be cautious than to assume that a situation will And?
be safe. Extinction of fear is context sensitive, but ‘Subjects who had learned to differentiate based on that
learning fear isn’t. We’d like to reverse those laws.’ cue were subsequently less fearful when the geometrical
shapes were not accompanied by a picture of that chair,
table, or painting. The cue, which might just as well
be a ski mask, became the predictor for the shock.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.effting/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.kindt/

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Regulating emo-
Regulating emotions through
cognitive reassessment
tions through
by Jorn Hövels
cognitive
reassessment
Suppose there’s a pile of dog poop on the street. You can look away to avoid feeling
disgusted. But how do you avoid disgust when there’s a flock of starlings overhead, and
soiled clothing seems unavoidable? Maurice Topper (27), now a doctoral candidate in
the Clinical Psychology Program Group, discovered as a master’s student that the degree
to which people succeed at regulating their emotions depends on the situation they
find themselves in. He wrote about this in his thesis, Cognitive change and attentional
deployment as emotion regulation strategies: The role of context. His thesis was hono-
red with a thesis award from the research master’s in psychology program.
Why do we need to regulate our emotions? How did you study that?
‘People who are good at that are less likely to develop an ‘The subjects in my experiment looked at disgusting
emotional disorder, do better socially, and remember events images on a computer screen, such as nasty tumors. Through
better. The latter is because they are not overwhelmed by electrodes placed on the eyebrow muscle we registered
emotions while storing those events in their memory.’ how many negative emotions that invoked. We instructed
some subjects to focus on feeling their disgust and others to
Can you provide an example? regulate it by averting their attention to the neutral back-
‘When people walk through a dark alley at night, there ground of the image. A third group of subjects was asked to
are several strategies they can employ to suppress their fears. cognitively reassess their disgust, for example by realizing
You can avoid the alley; take a flash light; distract yourself they had seen tumors before. During the experiment we
from fear by singing loudly, for example; cognitively reas- enlarged the disgusting image so that it took up an increa-
sess your fear by, for instance, realizing that nothing bad sing amount of space on the screen relative to the neutral
ever happens in that alley; and physically suppressing it by background. My research shows that people use different
preventing yourself from tightening your muscles. Earlier strategies depending on the situation. Emotion regulation
research has shown that that last suppression strategy is the proved more effective in subjects who cognitively reasses-
least functional and is most strongly tied to the development sed their disgust than in those who had been instructed to
of emotional disorders. Cognitively reassessing the situation avert their attention. That was what we expected, because
so it feels less threatening is generally the most effective.’ when the disgusting image becomes larger and eventually
takes up the entire screen, disgust is unavoidable.’
What is the implication?

‘The more emotion regulation strategies people master,
the better they will hold up in different situations.’

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
Psycholo-
Psychologists have to be
harder on themselves
gists have to
by Vittorio Busato
be harder on
themselves
The well-known American psychologist Daryl Bem recently published an article* in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) in which he poses, in short, that people
can sense the future. That would mean that precognition—a phenomenon also known
as psi—exists. Mathematical psychologist Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, associate professor in
the Psychological Methods Program Group, came across the article by chance. Within a
week, he and several colleagues cowrote a response**. Not only did it have considerable
impact on various blogs on the Internet***, but the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Science,
and others also highlighted the more general point Wagenmakers and colleagues make:
psychologists should conduct better research, as well as analyze their data better.
What is your main concern with Bem’s article? Philosopher of science Karl Popper once
‘It’s a disgrace that the editors of JPSP accepted this paper. said that in science it’s not about who says
The planning for his experiments is sloppy. For instance, something but about what’s being said. Aren’t
in one of them he changes the design halfway through; in you getting very personal with this?
another experiment he presents new stimuli to the subjects. ‘The first version was considerably more focused on the
He reports one-sided p-values even though methodology person. The final published article is much more general,
requires two-sided ones. Bem presents his results as if it because what Bem does is symptomatic for a lot of psycho-
concerns confirmatory research, even though he actually logy research. A so-called hip journal such as Psychological
did exploratory research. Why not just admit that?’ Science really takes the cake. Psychologists have to be much
harder on themselves, especially if they give a lot of credit to
What is the difference between the two? their reported effects. When you make unusual claims, you
‘In confirmatory research you determine beforehand what should put yourself in a methodological straitjacket. Extra-
you’re going to do. You test an experimental hypothesis ordinary claims require extraordinary statistical evidence.’
with those analyses you intend to do. Exploratory research
is less strict, also because as a researcher you have fewer But how?
specific expectations. There’s nothing wrong with exploratory ‘For years I have been propagating Bayesian statistics.
research, as long as you clearly indicate that you’re exploring. It really should be part of the psychology curriculum.
You would present results found as preliminary evidence, Bayesian statistics allow you to compare how probable
not as rock-solid proof. To get that, you would have to do a the gathered data are under the null hypothesis and how
new confirmatory study. What Bem did with his data was a probable under the alternative hypothesis. It’s possible that
fishing expedition. With enough fishing, you always come up the data are improbable under the null hypothesis, but
with something to which you can then add a nice interpre- even more improbable under the alternative hypothesis.
tive spin. As a methodologist, I think that’s repugnant.’ That does imply some support for the null hypothesis,
whereas with “regular” statistics you would reject it.’

Do you think Bayesian statistics will be
take hold quickly in psychology?
‘I would need precognition to know that. The use of
Bayesian statistics is fairly well established among mathe-
matical psychologists, but in mainstream psychology it
will take decades. The largest obstacle is accessibility and
pragmatic software. I recently submitted a grant proposal
to the European Research Council for the development
of a Bayesian version of SPSS, the statistical program
most researchers use to analyze their data. Such a Bay-
esian version could be a step in the right direction.’
How have your colleagues in the Social Psychology

Program Group responded to your article?
‘So far I have hardly received any responses. Methodolo-
gists are easily made out to be whiners anyway. I of course
belong to the out-group, so perhaps they feel I’m being too
hard on someone in their in-group. On the other hand,
they know very well that it’s methodologically wrong to
adjust hypotheses afterwards, as colleague Bem did. I’m
more than happy to present a talk though, whether it’s
within the program group or elsewhere in the country.’
http://www.ejwagenmakers.com/
http://dbem.ws/
*Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for

anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425.
**Wagenmakers, E.-J., Wetzels, R., Borsboom, D., & van der Maas, H.
L. J. (2011). Why psychologists must change the way they analyze their
data: The case of psi: Comment on Bem (2011). Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 100, 426-432.
For more on this scientific dispute:

http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1018886/Bem6.pdf
http://dbem.ws/ResponsetoWagenmakers.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1018886/ClarificationsForBemUttsJohnson.pdf
***e.g.: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2011/02/wagenmakers-bem-
round-3.html

Math in
Math in people
people
by Vittorio Busato
For his high school final exam in mathematics, Dylan Molenaar scored a perfect ten.
Nevertheless, university-level mathematics seemed too abstract to him and econometrics
was also out since he has little interest in economics. During the open days for psycho-
logy he discovered that there’s math in people, too. When he registered at the UvA he
already knew he would choose psychological methods as his major. After completing his
bachelor’s and master’s cum laude, he won an NWO Toptalent scholarship in 2007. He
used it to create his own doctoral position, with Dr. Conor Dolan as his supervisor and
Prof. Dr. Han van der Maas as his promotor. Molenaar hopes to complete his disserta-
tion this fall.
What did it take to get that scholarship? which is known in jargon as ability differentiation. But when
‘I wanted to pursue a doctoral degree. I could have sought you read the literature well, there is little support for that
out existing doctoral positions, but with this scholarship claim. To a certain extent, that can be ascribed to the dubious
NWO offered young investigators in just about every methods that are being used to study ability differentiation.’
field of science the opportunity to determine their own
dissertation topic. That appealed to me, and it seemed And you’re trying to change that?
to me that writing a research proposal would be a good ‘Yes. Intuitively you might think: put together an intelligent
experience anyway. NWO was sponsoring a total of forty and less intelligent group and use factor analysis to examine
doctoral positions. After a rigorous preselection round, 120 whether the g-factor is higher in one group than in the other
researchers were allowed to submit their proposal, and only group. But how do you tell these two groups apart? The g-fac-
a part of them were allowed to present it at NWO. Forty tor is not an observable variable but a statistical abstraction.
ended up receiving a scholarship. I kept going through to Some researchers take the subtest scores of the IQ test and
the next round, and as one of two researchers from the form groups on that basis. The danger in this is that it may
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the UvA result in artificial group differences, which can erroneously be
I presented my proposal to a jury of seven people. The seen as proof for ability differentiation. To avoid this problem
jury included a professor of history and a professor of I develop explicit statistical models with and without dif-
sociology, among others. Such a mixed composition forces ferentiation. I validate these models on existing intelligence
you to explain the topic in an understandable manner.’ data. If the models with differentiation describe the data
better, you can see that as proof for ability differentiation.’
Please do that for the readers of MindOpen, too.
‘My project is on intelligence and is titled Statistical mode- Do you believe in the g-factor?
ling of (cognitive) ability differentiation. An IQ test consists of ‘G is a statistical factor that allows you to describe, in a
subtests, all of which are positively correlated with each other parsimonious way, positive correlations between subtest
even though they intend to measure different aspects of intel- scores on an intelligence test. Again, it’s not an observable
ligence (such as spatial awareness and verbal fluency). The variable, g isn’t “really” in your brain. That’s why I avoid
explanation is that the so-called g-factor, a general intelligence assigning a concrete interpretation to the g-factor.’
factor, is at the basis of this. In the literature, many resear-
chers take that factor very seriously. There are those who
claim that g becomes lower as people’s intelligence is higher,

Your research involves basic science. Does your What are your ambitions after
dissertation have any practical relevance? completing your doctoral degree?
‘If ability differentiation really does exist, it would be ‘The combination of research and teaching works out really
bad news for the IQ test. If the g-factor is in fact lower in well for me, and I would love to keep working in science. I
people who are smarter, you would not be able to measure currently teach on item response theory for the bachelor’s
intelligence as well or as reliably in those people. A practical in psychological methods in the Psychology Department,
implication could be that there is little use in measuring and I teach research methods in the bachelor’s programs in
intelligence in the more highly educated as part of an biomedical sciences, psychobiology, and biology. Because
employment selection procedure. Because in that case, of all this teaching I’ve been allowed an extra year to com-
it would be hard to determine who should get hired.’ plete my research. However, I expect to have the text ready
in September. That gives me the opportunity to conduct
further research, for example on the degree to which these
differentiation models can be applied to personality data.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/d.molenaar/
http://www.dylanmolenaar.nl/
http://hvandermaas.socsci.uva.nl/Homepage_Han_van_der_Maas/
Home.html
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/h.l.j.vandermaas/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.v.dolan/

VISUALISING DATA
Visualising data with qgraph
WITH QGRAPH
by Vittorio Busato
Things can go very quickly. Last year Sacha Epskamp (25) finished his bachelor’s degree
cum laude, majoring in psychological methods. Now in his fourth year, he is doing a
research master’s with psychological methods as a major and clinical psychology as a
(likely) minor. Already, he has presented a talk at a recent psychometric conference* at
the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Where did your interest in methodology originate? What was your talk at the German conference about?
‘It budded right away, in my first year of study. My interest ‘About R, and especially about the
in methodology grew even more when, in my second year, options to visualize data.’
I took a class on causal systems with Denny Borsboom. He
told us that there was still a lot of work to be done in that Were you the only student to present a talk?
area and invited students to help out. That appealed to me, ‘A few doctoral candidates presented, but I was the
so for a few months I worked on a network for the DSM-IV. only student. Perhaps the organizers were not aware
Borsboom was satisfied with my work and offered me a posi- that I am a student, but it shouldn’t matter. It’s not
tion as a research assistant. And I’m still doing that today.’ as if students have nothing to contribute to a field.
I received many enthusiastic and positive responses
What are you primarily working on? afterwards. I’ve kept in touch with a few researchers
‘On the program R. It’s an open-source statisti- to explore potential extensions to my package.’
cal programming environment that is often used in
methodology and is more versatile than SPSS, for When do you hope to graduate, and
example. I hadn’t heard of R before, but by now I’ve what are your future plans?
written my own extension package, qgraph**.’ ‘I’m currently doing an internship with Maths Gar-
den. Next year I want to get started on my thesis. It will
What is the purpose of that extension? probably deal with something related to psychometrics,
‘Using qgraph you can easily visualize relationships hopefully working with Cito. After that, I want to pursue
between variables in large data sets as a graph. For example, a doctoral degree, also related to a psychometric topic.’
you can represent a correlation matrix as a graph in
which each variable is a node and each correlation an
edge between two nodes. The clearer and stronger the
edge, the stronger the correlation. This is a unique way http://sites.google.com/site/sachaepskamp/
of looking at data, and it reveals patterns that would *http://uni-tuebingen.de/psychologie/psychoco/
**cran.r-project.org/package=qgraph
otherwise be hard to detect. With qgraph it’s also easy to
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/d.borsboom/
perform factor analyses and visualize factor loadings.’ http://www.rekentuin.nl/
http://www.cito.nl/

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Neurostimula-
Neurostimulator makes Parkinson’s
patients more impulsive
tor makes
by Jorn Hövels
Parkinson’s
patients more
After years of medication use, patients with Parkinson’s disease often start suffering
from negative side effects such as uncontrolled movements. As an alternative doctors
can insert a neurostimulator under the skin at the sternum for so-called deep brain
stimulation. It sends electrical pulses to the brain to promote signal transmission.
impulsive
That makes patients’ movements more fluid. With Scott Wylie from the University
of Virginia (USA) and others, Wery van den Wildenberg, assistant professor in the
Developmental Psychology Program Group, studied the effect of deep brain stimulation
on the brain and behavior of Parkinson’s patients. They published their findings in the
scientific journal Brain*.
What did the study look like? determine how well subjects suppress irrelevant information
‘Seventeen patients with Parkinson’s had to complete the or stimuli, with or without help from a neurostimulator. The
so-called Simon task twice, the first time with the neurosti- better they are able to do that, the less impulsive they are.’
mulator turned on and then with it turned off. We wanted
to know what the behavioral effects are of stimulating the What is the most important conclusion?
subthalamic nucleus, the part of the brain responsible for ‘When the neurostimulator is on, Parkinson’s patients
motor and cognitive functioning. We were primarily inte- make more fast, impulsive mistakes. That’s when they let
rested in knowing what the effect of deep brain stimulation the Simon task throw them off. When the stimulator is off
is on the degree to which patients behave impulsively.’ they respond more slowly, but make fewer mistakes.’
What does the Simon task entail? How do you explain that?
‘It’s a cognitive task during which subjects are instructed to ‘My colleague Richard Ridderinkhof developed the
press a button with their left hand as soon as possible upon Activation Suppression Model. It explains that in order
seeing a blue circle appear on a computer screen, and to press for the cognitive control system to suppress irrelevant
with their right hand when a green circle appears. However, information, it needs time to become active. When
both circles appear on the left at times and on the right side the stimulator was off, patients responded more slowly
of the screen at other times. That creates a conflict situation. and as a result made fewer fast mistakes. They used the
You see, our motor system works in such a way that we correct hand to press the correct button because they
respond more quickly with our left when something appears did not respond to their first, erroneous impulse.’
on the left, and more quickly with the right hand when
something appears on the right. That’s due to our automatic So the conclusion didn’t work out
reflex, which especially troubles Parkinson’s patients.’ well for the neurostimulator.
‘It’s really not that bad. When the neurostimulator is on,
What does that have to do with impulsivity? patients do indeed make more fast, impulsive mistakes, but
‘When you’re impulsive, your behavior is being controlled at the same time it has a positive effect on the motor system.
by stimuli that you might suppress if you had more time When we turned the stimulator off, patients immediately
to think. The Simon task is an instrument that helps us started suffering from severe motor problems. But the fact

remains that impulsivity is a nasty byproduct of neurostimu-
lation and that hasn’t been highlighted enough until now.
Doctors should really educate their patients more on this.’
How impulsive do patients get?

‘There are clinical stories about patients who go
through a personality change after deep brain stimu-
lation. They showed risky behavior such as gambling,
ill-judged investments, and hypersexuality.’
In short, do patients have a choice between two evils?

‘Paradoxically, the study also showed that if we zoomed
in on the slow response times with the stimulator, subjects
were actually better able to suppress irrelevant information.
That implies that when patients take more time to think
they will have less trouble with the Simon task, even when
the stimulator is on. In short, it would be good if we could
teach patients with a stimulator to take more time to think,
so they can avoid falling prey to their first impulse.’
http://www.wery.dds.nl/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/w.p.m.vandenwildenberg/
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/wylielab/researchteam/
researchteam.cfm
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/k.r.ridderinkhof/
*Wylie, S.A., Ridderinkhof, K.R., Elias, W.J., Frysinger, R.C., Bashore,

T.R., Downs, K.E., van Wouwe, N.C., & van den Wildenberg, W.P.M.
(2010). Subthalamic nucleus stimulation influences expression and
suppression of impulsive behavior in Parkinson’s Disease. Brain, 133,
3611–3624.
(http://www.wery.dds.nl/publications/Wylie_etal_STN-DBS.SIMON_
Brain.pdf)
RECENTly published
M.H. Taal & C. Poleij (red.)

Interventies in het onderwijs:
werken aan goede verhoudingen
2011 - Den Haag: Boom/Lemma

Cognitive bias
Cognitive bias in alcoholics
in alcoholics
by Jorn Hövels
Fear and alcohol addiction go together fairly often. Research shows that automatic,
cognitive processes stimulate alcohol addicts to more easily associate situations with
alcohol, which makes them drink more. Elske Salemink, assistant professor in the
Developmental Psychology Program Group, studies the interaction between fear and
alcohol-related cognitive processes in alcohol addicts with anxiety. For this research,
she received a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
(NWO).
Fearful people drink more—that What exactly will you study as part
has been known, hasn’t it? of the Veni grant project?
‘But we don’t know why exactly. Although earlier ‘It is my expectation that anxious alcohol addicts
studies prove that it makes them feel better, more recent suffer from these cognitive biases in fearful situati-
research also shows that automatic, subconscious proces- ons specifically, and that’s what I will study.’
ses that have not yet been sufficiently mapped out play
a role in developing and sustaining alcohol addiction.’ How?
‘There are different methods for that. In the first phase of
Such as? the research, which involved students, I made them think
‘My colleague Reinout Wiers has discovered that back to a situation in which they were nervous or anxious.
many alcohol addicts have cognitive biases. They have Subsequently, I had them write down that situation, and their
a so-called attention bias, which is why alcohol more cognitive processes were measured. But we also do research in
easily captures their attention. Alcohol addicts show an patients and alcohol addicts with posttraumatic stress disor-
action tendency, which makes them more inclined to der (PTSD). For example, I can first show them the word war,
reach for a drink. They have memory associations, which after which two images appear on a computer screen: one of
make them more easily associate situations with alcohol, cola and another of an alcoholic drink. The expectation is
and an interpretation bias, which causes them to more that after the word war they will more easily spot the alco-
easily interpret ambiguous information as being about holic drink image than the cola image. And we expect that
alcohol. Such biases increase the chance of a relapse.’ this would not be the case if they read a neutral word first.’
Can you give me an example of interpretation bias? War and alcohol do relate to each
‘Suppose you’re out bowling with friends, and other. Both can lead to decay.
someone asks: “How about another round?” He ‘We will first study the correlation and then the cau-
may mean that he would like do another round of sality of the connection. Eventually we would like to
bowling, but he could just as well be talking about know if alcohol addicts do in fact drink more in fearful
a round of beers. In situations like those, many alco- situations due to those automatic processes playing
holics are more inclined to think about alcohol.’ an extra important role. And I will investigate this for
all the cognitive processes Wiers has mapped out.’

Can cognitive biases be remedied? That sounds too good to be true.
‘They can be changed through so-called cognitive ‘Of course we’re not talking about a single ses-
bias modification (CBM) trainings. Let me provide an sion. During eight days they read a hundred stories
example of such a training, for which the efficacy study every day, practicing with a wide variety of situations
was recently published in Psychological Science*. During a from everyday life. That way of interpreting has to
regular addiction treatment, 214 alcohol addicts completed become ingrained. They’re learning a new habit.’
a CBM training session. Using a joystick they “pushed”
away computer images related to alcohol and “pulled”
toward them images of soda. Those images became smaller
while being “pushed” and larger as they pulled the joystick *Wiers, R.W., Eberl, C., Rinck, M., Becker, E. & Lindenmeyer, J. (in
toward them. The result: subjects relapsed into alcohol press). Re-training automatic action tendencies changes alcoholic
patients’ approach bias for alcohol and improves treatment outcome.
addiction less often than the control group. Whereas before
Psychological Science.
the training they associated alcohol with “approach,” that
changed to “avoid.” Apparently, ingrained cognition can be http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.salemink/
influenced through a simple act, such as moving a joystick.’ http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/r.w.h.j.wiers/
http://www.impliciet.eu/
Are you also involved in those CBM trainings?

‘Yes, in the final research phase, and especially as it relates
to interpretation bias. For example, you might think of an
experiment in which alcohol addicts read brief scenarios
that they need to finish in a way that has nothing to do with
alcohol. Take the bowling. Patients can finish the question
“How about another round?” with the phrase “And that’s
when I picked up the next ball.” That way, they learn to
interpret in a way that does not revolve around alcohol.’

Why children
Why children and adolescents
don’t make good decisions
and adolescents
by Jorn Hövels
don’t make
good decisions
In 2008 Anna van Duijvenvoorde (27) landed the third prize at the UvA thesis award
ceremony. In her master’s thesis* she studied the influence of positive and negative
feedback on children. The prize encouraged her to continue on in science. Now,
Duijvenvoorde is a doctoral candidate in the Developmental Psychology Program
Group. One of her research studies focuses on age-related changes in decision making.
How did you study this? But giving out that information compensated for that?
‘In this study, we looked at how decreasing the load ‘In part. Even with that information, they
on (working) memory leads to more favorable decisi- didn’t score as well as the adults.’
ons. We did that from a developmental perspective, for
300 people from six age cohorts: ages seven to nine, Quite remarkable.
nine to eleven, eleven to thirteen, twelve to fourteen, ‘It certainly is. We think that aside from those (wor-
fourteen to seventeen, and eighteen to twenty-five.’ king) memory processes there is another factor: the
ability to regulate the emotional response after winning
What were the subjects asked to do? or losing. You can look at it as an affective component
‘They completed a win-lose task on the computer. that distracts children from the best decision.’
During the task they learned which choice they needed
to make to secure the largest profit. It involved a parti- And that doesn’t affect adults?
cular probability distribution to maximize their profit. ‘In a way it does. Suppose you’re in a casino and you’ve
Children and adolescents have a hard time with that.’ bet on number three ten times, but each time you lose.
Many people will bet on a new number. Children, too,
What was the hypothesis? will think “O no, I’m losing, so I’d better make a different
‘We gave the children information on the probabi- choice real quick”—even if they are aware of the probability
lity distribution in advance and expected them to do distribution and know that their first decision was the
better with that knowledge. Because the fact is, the right one. The difference is that adults are more stable and
information takes some load of their (working) memory, understand that it’s gambling and that losing is a pos-
since they don’t have to figure out the profit outlook. sibility. They’re not as easily flustered by a losing streak
The control group did not receive this information. when they’re certain they’ve bet on the “winning horse.”
As expected, children and adolescents scored better
when they received the information in advance. The
younger the person, the greater the improvement.’
* Evaluating the negative or valuing the positive? A developmental fMRI study
on feedback based learning.
How do you explain that?
‘In young children the frontal lobes, which are
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.c.k.vanduijvenvoorde/
responsible for (working) memory, are less deve-
loped. The lateral prefrontal cortex, for example,
continues to grow into early adulthood.’

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
HOW DOES
How does prejudice develop?
PREJUDICE
by Paulien Bakker
DEVELOP?
Within the Social Psychology Program Group, Juliane Degner conducts fundamental
research into the origins of prejudice and published on this in the prestigious Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology. * She studied how young children differentiate
between their own group and others. Prejudice, it turned out, is picked up at a young
age. However, the actual application of that prejudice is still years away at that time.
Using so-called priming tasks you tested children for How do you explain this?
automatic prejudice. How exactly did that work? ‘It’s a matter of parallel learning processes. That can also
‘We conducted this study in German and Dutch school be explained from evolutionary theory. It’s important that
children ages nine to fifteen. The German children were children recognize differences in social structures early
shown, on a computer, pictures that had earlier been coded on, even though they cannot apply them right away. But
as positive or negative. In between pictures they saw images it’s challenging to do solid research in young children.
of Turkish or German people. In the Netherlands we repeated We don’t know whether they really hold that opinion or
the study, showing images of Moroccans and Dutch people think their knowledge is being tested, or whether they’re
between pictures. The subjects were told that those images simply reproducing what they’re hearing around them.’
were meant to distract them, and that was what we studied.
The idea is that your response time is the shortest when the Why is research on prejudice relevant?
distracting image agrees with the positive or negative picture ‘When we understand the processes that lead to discri-
that follows, which you have to label as negative or positive.’ mination we’re already one step closer to finding a way to
make our society more tolerant. But we’re not there by a
What were the findings? long shot. There are still so many things we don’t know
‘Earlier research using a different method, the Implicit yet—such as how do we learn about race? And can we move
Association Test (IAT), showed that five and six-year-olds beyond our prejudice? We assume that we have to teach
already hold the same automatic prejudice as adults. That children at the earliest possible age to regard everyone as
intrigued me. However, it turns out to be more nuanced equal. But perhaps it’s unwise to want to teach them this
than that. In our study we discovered that it isn’t until when they’re not ready for it yet. It might just be that the
around age twelve that children are capable of assigning only thing they would retain is that adults are trying to make
people to a category and will clearly recognize that category. them believe things that they really shouldn’t buy into.’
We only see automatic prejudice when children that young
are asked to use the social categories from the IAT. Before We are all prejudiced, aren’t we?
that, children do have abstract knowledge of different ‘Psychology text books say we are, but researchers are
groups and types of prejudice, but they can’t apply it yet. starting to back away from that somewhat. It appears that
That was also shown in an American study. The researcher tolerant people are able to switch off the automatic activation
interviewed a child and was told by the child that black of paradigms about the in-group and the out-group. I’m skep-
people are lazy and unreliable. When the study was over tical about that myself. We keep coming back to the same fin-
the little boy resumed playing—with his black friend.’ ding: when you ask children to look at several photos, white
children would rather play with white kids, for example.’

What will your next study be?
‘I’m currently doing a meta analysis on the influence
of parents on their children’s prejudice. By now I’ve
gathered more than 120 studies from the areas of psy-
chology, sociology, and political psychology. And guess
what? Young children’s opinions on other groups are
farther away from the parents’ opinion than those of older
children and their parents. For now, my explanation is
that children eventually acquire their prejudice by closely
observing their parents’ behavior. They pay attention not
to what their parents say, but to what they actually do.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.degner/
* Degner, J. & Wentura, D. (2010). Automatic Prejudice in Childhood

and Early Adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98,
356-374.
RECENTly published
Koomen, W., & van der Pligt, J.

Polarisatie, radicalisering en terrorisme
2011 - Den Haag: Boom Juridische uitgevers

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Why obstacles
Why obstacles are actually
a good thing
are actually
by Paulien Bakker
a good thing
In 2007, Slovenian-German Janina Marguc followed her promotor Jens Förster to
the Netherlands to conduct her dissertation research on the influence of obstacles on
cognition. Her dissertation is due this summer. But will Marguc herself be able to reach
her goal?
Are obstacles useful? and how they could overcome it. Those who were highly
‘Yes. Initially, you probably don’t experience it that way, motivated to reach their goal took a step back. In a dif-
because obstacles impede your progress. But when you’re ferent experiment it turned out that subjects were better
motivated to reach your goal, obstacles are often useful in able to integrate unrelated pieces of information after
the end, I suspect. They make you take a step back and look they had run into obstacles. Their creativity increased.’
at the whole picture. And because ‘looking at the whole
picture’ is related to creativity, this can in turn contribute Do the outcomes of your experiments address
to more creative thinking. In the long term, obstacles can how people deal with setbacks in everyday life?
contribute to the development of wisdom, because they force ‘We suspect it takes much longer before you’re able to
people to develop a different perspective on a situation.’ take that step back when you’re dealing with large obstacles
that lead to negative emotions. Negative emotions often
How did you get the idea for this line of research? have the exact opposite effect: we get extremely focused
‘I completed my master’s thesis with Tory Higgins at and can no longer oversee things in their entirety. But I’m
Columbia University in the U.S. There, I studied the impact going by the presumption that taking a step back does in
of setbacks on reaching goals. We asked subjects to complete fact have a positive effect on dealing with obstacles.’
various tasks in a lab setting. Part of the group was being
hindered by bothersome background noise. For this group, How come?
the value of the prize they could win by performing well ‘A lot of research has been done on the purpose of psycho-
increased, but only when they kept focused on the primary logical distance. It shows that when we distance ourselves—
task. That led me to the question: How do people deal physically, socially, or in terms of time—our capabilities in the
with obstacles? When do they take a step back? And does area of creativity and abstract thinking increases. We don’t
that help? It turns out that people primarily take a step respond as emotionally and exhibit more behavior that is in
back when they are very motivated to reach their goal.’ agreement with our goals and values. My research addresses
the question: When exactly does that switch happen? When
How did you study this? do people take a step back to look at the larger picture? And
‘In one study we asked subjects to determine their also, when is that a useful strategy? In the end, research into
personal goals for the upcoming six months. They were this topic will also be useful for therapeutic practice. When
first-year students with goals such as getting their pro- people get stuck in negative emotions, how do you help them
paedeutic diploma or their driver’s license or succeed in to take that step back and start to see the larger picture again?’
their relationship. Half were asked how they planned to
reach that goal, the other half to think about the largest
possible obstacle that stood between them and their goal

What is your largest obstacle in
completing your dissertation?
‘My findings. In my last experiment I tried to prove
that obstacles also lead to people coming up with more
creative means toward their goal. I asked people to con-
sider their most important goal for the next six months.
Half of the subjects were asked to identify the primary
obstacle to reaching that goal, the other half wasn’t.
Subsequently, everyone was asked to come up with as
many ways possible to reach their goal. We are currently
working on analyzing the responses to see if creativity
did in fact increase by taking a step back. If that’s not the
case? Well, then I will probably go back to the lab again.’
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.marguc/
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.forster/
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/higgins/people.html

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
STEREOTYP-
Stereotyping leads to hate
leads to stereotyping
ING LEADS TO
by Paulien Bakker
HATE LEADS TO
Alba Jasini (28) studied group hate in Kosovo for her master’s thesis. She did
this under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Agneta Fischer. Hate is difficult to
STEREOTYPING
change, Jasini discovered. The strongest indicator of hate is the conviction that
the other person has malicious intentions.
Why your interest in hate? What is the impact of fear?

‘I’m from the Balkans myself, from Albania. That’s ‘Hate originates in fear. This makes hate an instrumental
how I learned that hate between different nations, emotion in situations in which people feel threatened
political groups, or religious groups can have tragic or intimidated. Some of the stories we gathered were
consequences, such as violence or exclusion. It appears about events during which participants felt fear. We also
that at the heart of this is a strong perception of injus- found that people experience a more intense hate when
tice, resulting in a desire to hurt the object of hate.’ the opponent intimidates them while they are in their
own group. They want to protect their own group.’
You did field research in Kosovo. At your request,
73 students read four scenarios about meeting So sharing negative emotions
someone from the out-group on the street while strengthens the group identity?
they were alone or in a group, and while the ‘Sharing emotions helps people deal with their emo-
other person was either alone or in a group. tional baggage. Psychologist Eran Halperin, who studied
‘We conducted two studies on ethnic Albanian students the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, poses that groups that are
from the University of Prishtina. In the first pilot study involved in serious conflicts have the tendency to develop
we asked participants to report on their own negative a strong collective memory of injustice, supported by
experiences with Serbians. Those were heartbreaking ongoing feelings of hate. Our pilot study showed that
stories—participants many times had experienced violent participants often discussed the past with other Kosovo
events during the 1998-1999 war. Some of them escaped Albanians, but almost never with Serbians. Perhaps in
with their families to the Albanian border, while family such conflicts hate of the out-group becomes the norm,
members who were left behind went missing or got killed. and that helps to strengthen the group identity.’
Participants were between seven and ten years old during
the war. Their memories were still very vivid and painful.’ What are you currently doing?
‘I teach at the University of Tirana and do consulting for
In your thesis you write that aside from individual aid organizations such as Save the Children. But my research
and situational causes, hate has three factors in projects in Amsterdam did inspire me to pursue a doctoral
common: stereotyping, fear, and the conviction position. It would be great if I could find one at the UvA.’
that the out-group has malicious intentions.
‘Our research showed that the weaker subjects’ positive
stereotypes of Serbians were, the stronger their hate.
Such stereotypes contain opinions on the tolerance, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alba-jasini/25/131/330
sincerity, aggressiveness, and unreliability of the other http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.h.fischer/
http://www.eranhalperin.com/
person. However, given the long history leading up
to this conflict we believe that stereotypes have led
to hate, while hate in turn fed into stereotypes.’

PhDs & grants
PhDs GRANTS
January 13, Ilja Sligte January 2011
A new definition of visual short-term memory
Michel Handgraaf, NSF Grant

January 21, Zand Scholten Understanding and Improving Environmental Decisions
Admissible statistics and latent variable theory
Reinout Wiers, ZONMw-NIDA

March 8, Sonja Schinkel Translational Research into Smoking Cessation in Adolescents
Applicant reactions to selection events: Interac-
tive effects of fairness, feedback and attributions
Reinout Wiers, NWO hersenen en cognitie
Play hard, learn hard
March 18, Suzanne Oosterwijk
Moving the Mind: Embodied Emotion Con-
cepts and their Consequences
March 24, Ilona McNeill Scientific meetings

Why We Choose, How We Choose, What We Choose: The
Influence of Decision Initiation Motives on Decision Making
may 20-21, london
Second European Symposium on Symp-
May 13, Bram Heerebout tom Validity Assessment
Getting Emotional with evolutionary simulations: The Origin http://pdf.koenigundmueller.de/kurs/FB110520A.pdf
of Affective Processing in Artificial Neural Networks
may 30 - june 1, Lunteren, the netherlands

May 25, Wieke de Vente Dutch Endo-Neuro-Psycho (ENP) Meeting
Sick and tired; psychological and http://enpmeeting.org
physiological aspects of work-related stress
june 19-22, Gatineau (Canada)

June 7, Marieke Effting 16th Annual CyberPsychology & CyberTherapy Conference
Plasticity of Fear Memory: A search for relapse prevention http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/ispr/2010/10/29/call-16th-
annual-cyberpsychology-cybertherapy-conference/
June 10, Doranne Hilarius

Title unknown june 30 - july 1, Amsterdam
CSCA Symposium on Impulsivity and Inhibition
July 1, Shaul Salvi

Ethical Decision Making: On Balancing Right and Wrong august 22-26, Amsterdam
WinBUGS Workshop
http://bayescourse.socsci.uva.nl/

news & Agenda
NEWS lectures
How does our brain make the right
BRAIN & COGNITION
choices?
HoofdZaken (brain matters) is a new film series May 25: Roger Ratcliff
about the research priority programs at the UvA. Modeling Cognitive Decision Processes and Applications
Scientists in the priority program Brain and Cogni-
tion talk about their research on decision making.
http://flashmedia.uva.nl/avc/uvatv/oz/brain_cognitive.html June 30: Nico Frijda lecture, Adele Diamond
Ways to support children’s emerging executive function abilities
Experimental training corrects drinking

behavior in alcoholics Further information:
A new experimental method has proven effective in www.csca.nl/csca/lectures/
changing the drinking behavior of alcohol addicts. When
used alongside conventional behavioral therapy, so-called
cognitive bias modification trainings can reduce the auto-
matic action tendency toward alcohol. This was shown in
research published in Psychological Science in March 2011 and
conducted by psychologists from the UvA, the Salus Klinik
in Lindow, Germany, and Radboud University Nijmegen.
More information: Prof. Dr. Reinout Wiers, professor of Death notice: Annemarie Kolk
developmental psychopathology (R.W.H.J.Wiers@uva.nl).
On April 5 Annemarie Kolk unexpectedly passed
away. Annemarie had been with the Psychology
‘Cuddle chemical’ leads to prejudice Department at the University of Amsterdam since
Led by Prof. Dr. Carsten de Dreu, researchers at the 1971 and over the years developed herself as a
UvA have uncovered for the first time a neurobiological specialist in the area of clinical and medical psy-
cause for ethnocentrism and prejudice. Their experi- chology. We lose in her an inspired, warm-hearted,
ments show that oxytocin makes people evaluate their conscientious, demanding, and colorful teacher
own group more positively. That causes members of and researcher. She made unique contributions to
other groups to be discriminated against. Their findings the development of the educational programming
were published in the Early Edition of PNAS USA. and how it’s organized and played a dominant
role in medical psychology research. With her
grand personality she has inspired and supported
Social anxiety: mother has the greatest many colleagues and students. We will miss her.
influence on her children
The role of the mother in social situations is generally more Prof. Dr. Agneta Fischer, Chairperson
important for children’s behavior than that of the father,
according to research by UvA professor Susan Bögels.
The results of this unique experimental study have been
published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Meer onderzoeksnieuws op:

www.fmg.uva.nl/home.cfm

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DIGIZINE PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTe

Open Number 7 - Spring 2011

interviews with (among others):

WORK & ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Published by

The rush of playing jazz and studying abroad 8

Brain & cognition Editor

A scientific internship down under 13 Contributors

Regulating emotions through cognitive reassessment 18 Translations

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS Graphic Design

Visualising data with qgraph 23 Email

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Subscriptions

How does prejudice develop? 29

PhDs & Grants 34

Copyright for all published material is held by

2 digizine mindopen VI - spring 2011 psychology research institute

Six doctoral candidates also explain their research. And *http://www.studeren.uva.nl/msc_psychology

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The other side

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Suppose that managers want to see their teams

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right and wrong

As a psychologist, do you ever wonder In your dissertation you focus primarily on

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Verschuere, B., Ben-Shakhar, G., & Meijer, E.

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What other comparisons were made?

What can we conclude from that?

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What’s the relevance of this?

Concentration problems are usually

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How does fear work? So what did you study?

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What is the implication?

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How have your colleagues in the Social Psychology

*Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for

For more on this scientific dispute:

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How impulsive do patients get?

In short, do patients have a choice between two evils?

*Wylie, S.A., Ridderinkhof, K.R., Elias, W.J., Frysinger, R.C., Bashore,

M.H. Taal & C. Poleij (red.)

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Are you also involved in those CBM trainings?

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* Degner, J. & Wentura, D. (2010). Automatic Prejudice in Childhood